Like moving to the top of a ridge to suddenly see the landscape anew, Bob Hutchinson’s 23andMe gave him a new view of himself, of his family history and even of the world around him.
<div id="attachment_25693" style="width: 243px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-25693" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/dd64ff48-353c-45ec-9144-586d6b79c45f-11-233x300.jpg" alt="" class="size-medium wp-image-25693" width="233" height="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/dd64ff48-353c-45ec-9144-586d6b79c45f-11-233x300.jpg 233w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/dd64ff48-353c-45ec-9144-586d6b79c45f-11.jpg 359w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 233px) 100vw, 233px" />Bob Hutchinson&#8217;s parents.</div>
“It was a surprise,” Bob told the<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/28/science/dna-tests-ancestry.html?_r=0"> New York Times</a> recently.
His story was featured both in the paper and online in a weekly<a href="https://www.facebook.com/pg/nytimes/videos/?ref=page_internal"> Facebook Live</a> episode called “Conversations on Race.”
Bob grew up in northern New Jersey, thinking his family was white with Swedish and Italian ancestry. But using 23andMe told him something else. His <a href="https://www.23andme.com/dna-ancestry/">Ancestry Composition</a> showed that he is in fact more than an eighth sub-Saharan African.
“I think it’s great, it’s who I am,” Bob said during his live conversation with Times reporter Rachel Swarms. “It’s great to be so mixed.”
The surprised revealed as secret about his family, helping him connect with cousins he didn’t know he had, but who knew who he was, about his family and about the family secret.
Check out his story in the<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/28/science/dna-tests-ancestry.html?_r=0"> New York Times</a>, or watch the<a href="https://www.facebook.com/pg/nytimes/videos/?ref=page_internal"> recorded conversation</a>.

23andMe Blog

23andMe Blog Team

DNA Testing Helps Reveal Hidden Family History

When Ryan’s mother and father adopted him as an infant, there was a typewritten note slipped into his adoption records with a message from his birth parents:
“We pray that you are happy,” it said.
For most of his 36 years, Ryan has been happy, and for most of his life, he’s been searching for his birth parents to tell them that in person.
“I was [happy]. I am, and I always will be,” Ryan said recently.
This year on his birthday, after all those decades of searching, he typed out his own message listing the reasons he feels blessed. At the end of that list he said this:
“Today, July 29th, my family and I met my birth parents and their families,” Ryan wrote. “Today, on my birthday … for the very first time I can see them, hug them, and tell them ‘Thank You,’ which is the greatest birthday gift that I could ever receive. Today my family gets new members. Today I can share with them all the happiness and love in my life. Today, I am so thankful.”
<div id="attachment_25615" style="width: 970px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-25615" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/20479643_10207976905895232_8908593567052941357_n.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-25615 size-full" height="540" width="960" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/20479643_10207976905895232_8908593567052941357_n.jpg 960w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/20479643_10207976905895232_8908593567052941357_n-300x169.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/20479643_10207976905895232_8908593567052941357_n-768x432.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/20479643_10207976905895232_8908593567052941357_n-880x495.jpg 880w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 960px) 100vw, 960px" />Ryan on the right meets his biological father Ed, his biological mother, Karen and his biological sister Caroline  for the first time on his birthday. Photo: <a href="http://www.jacpfef.com/">Jackie Foley</a> </div>
But like all good things, this good thing didn’t come easy.

<h5>Where it started </h5>
Ryan&#8217;s parents adopted him in North Carolina, which has closed adoption records. So even though he always knew he was adopted, finding out more about his origins was problematic. On top of that, because his dad was in the Army, the family moved a lot. 
<div id="attachment_25619" style="width: 970px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-25619" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/20604263_10207976904415195_3109513256002552356_n.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-25619 size-full" height="640" width="960" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/20604263_10207976904415195_3109513256002552356_n.jpg 960w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/20604263_10207976904415195_3109513256002552356_n-300x200.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/20604263_10207976904415195_3109513256002552356_n-768x512.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/20604263_10207976904415195_3109513256002552356_n-880x587.jpg 880w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 960px) 100vw, 960px" />Ryan meeting his father for the first time. Photo: <a href="http://www.jacpfef.com/">Jackie Foley</a></div>
His parents, Jack and Terri Moore, picked up the family — Ryan and his younger sister Allisen — as they moved to posts that ranged from Kansas to Korea. That made it harder for Ryan to track down records. But it didn’t stop him from looking or asking questions. When Ryan was in 5th grade, he did an oral report for class at Spencer Elementary School in Chicopee, Massachusetts. The assignment was on what was unique about his family, and his topic was his adoption. 
&nbsp;
<h5>Life Gets In The Way</h5>
Two years later was when he first read that note from his birth parents.
But as he got older, even though he was still trying to find his biological family, he eventually had to put his search on hold. 
“Life got in the way,” Ryan said.
There was college, the Army, deploying to Afghanistan, starting a new career, and getting married. The years slipped by, and his search was pushed to the side until he and his wife Debby decided to have kids — two sons, Ian, 5, and Ellis, 3. 
It was that last milestone that again stirred in Ryan the need to know more about his biological family.
“I always wanted to know,” said Ryan, 36. “But having a family that sparked in my mind, ‘OK I got to find this out.’” 
Like most adoptees, when Ryan visited a doctor and had to answer questions about whether he had medical issues in his family, he was at a loss.
“I have no idea.” 
That was easy to brush off when it was just about him, but having kids changed that.
“I realized that I didn&#8217;t have any health history information for our son,” Ryan said.
<h5>We have to find them </h5>
At first, that meant just diving back into his adoption records; he found “crib notes” from a foster parent that took care of him before his parents adopted him. Ryan’s wife immediately saw in those notes parallels with the type of things she’d seen with their first son.
<div id="attachment_25616" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-25616" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/20526063_10207976905815230_2891730427791474607_n-300x200.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-25616 size-medium" height="200" width="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/20526063_10207976905815230_2891730427791474607_n-300x200.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/20526063_10207976905815230_2891730427791474607_n-768x512.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/20526063_10207976905815230_2891730427791474607_n-880x587.jpg 880w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/20526063_10207976905815230_2891730427791474607_n.jpg 960w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />Ryan&#8217;s parents, Jack and Terri Moore watch as he meets his biological parents. Photo: <a href="http://www.jacpfef.com/">Jackie Foley</a></div>&#8220;We have to find them,&#8221; she told Ryan.
But the paper records didn’t get him very far with closed adoption policies. Then last year, his wife gave him a 23andMe kit for Christmas. He saw it as a chance to learn about his ancestry and health, and maybe find more about his biological family. The health and ancestry information offered a refreshing opportunity to learn things he hadn’t know about himself. The family stuff came later.
About a month ago, someone popped up on his DNA Relatives as a predicted uncle. It’s hard to convey how momentous something like this is for an adoptee. It was the first person he was ever connected to biologically, his first blood relative.
Ryan took a long time working on the wording of his message. He was afraid that he might say something that would turn this newly found relative away. That’s not what happened.
Almost immediately after sending a carefully worded note, he got a response.
&#8220;He is my uncle,&#8221; Ryan said, describing the response. &#8220;He knows of me. He wants to help.”
<h5>Contact</h5>
When in the past it had taken years, decades even, to find the smallest of details, Ryan found himself on the edge of learning the whole truth in just hours. Two days after that exchange with his uncle, while he and Debby sat and watched a performance of Hamilton on Broadway, Ryan got a text that changed his life forever:
&#8220;Ryan, your biological mother, Karen, and myself, Ed, your biological father, have hoped and dreamed of this day.&#8221;
Soon, they talked on the phone, and Karen and Ed spoke with Ryan&#8217;s parents Jack and Terri. His wife spoke with them. So too did his sister Allisen. Ryan learned that he had another sister, a full sister, named Caroline. And he learned a bit of the back story.
His biological father, Ed, had been in North Carolina helping his dad open a new restaurant while on summer break from college when he met his biological mother, Karen, who was also in college but working a summer job. They started dating but went back to school in the fall, and that&#8217;s when she found out she was pregnant. They agreed that adoption was the best option. After Ryan&#8217;s birth, Karen and Ed drifted apart, but several years later they met again and married, and had Caroline, Ryan&#8217;s biological sister. It was a few years after that they got a divorce but remained amicable, and continued to live near each other in the Boston area.
<h5>Best Birthday Present Ever</h5>
<div id="attachment_25614" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-25614" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/20597315_10207976901815130_2834176105222409161_n-300x200.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-25614 size-medium" height="200" width="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/20597315_10207976901815130_2834176105222409161_n-300x200.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/20597315_10207976901815130_2834176105222409161_n-768x512.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/20597315_10207976901815130_2834176105222409161_n-880x587.jpg 880w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/20597315_10207976901815130_2834176105222409161_n.jpg 960w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />Ryan, center, with his new extended family on his birthday. Photo: <a href="http://www.jacpfef.com/">Jackie Foley</a></div>
After Ryan finally found them, they all arranged to get together in person at Ed&#8217;s home on Ryan&#8217;s birthday. It turned out to be the best gift.
It was a shock, seeing family members who looked like him and even shared some of the same mannerisms. Ryan and his biological father share an odd trait of raising their voices an octave or two when they kid around, and they both love Formula 1 racing.
&#8220;That whole nature versus nurture thing is hard to get your head around,&#8221; Ryan said.
But Ryan was just as excited that his biological parents could meet his parents, Jack and Terri. He wanted them to see how lucky he was to have the life that they had given him.
&#8220;I have lived a happy life,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I know how hard the decision was that they made 36 years ago, but I wanted to express to them how thankful I am for it.&#8221;

Ryan’s Search For Family

Paul Leventhal is a patient man.
<div id="attachment_22516" style="width: 278px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-22516" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Jimmy-Paul1-268x300.jpg" alt="" class="size-medium wp-image-22516" width="268" height="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Jimmy-Paul1-268x300.jpg 268w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Jimmy-Paul1.jpg 449w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 268px) 100vw, 268px" />Paul, right, and his brother Jimmy.</div>In his 70s now, he’s been searching for his biological father since he was 18.
More than two years ago, we wrote about Paul finding his half brother, Jimmy, using 23andMe. <a href="https://blog.23andme.com/23andme-customer-stories/a-fantastical-story/">Their story</a> — spanning decades and several continents — was dramatic and inspiring, but for Paul, at least, there were still chapters to be written.
“I joined 23andMe …primarily to trace down my genetic father,” he said. “Never did I imagine I would find a half brother on my maternal side who was born three years after me.”
It was a joyful surprise, and the two have built a relationship.
“(Jimmy) and I get along well. We bonded, and that’s never going to fall way,” Paul said.
And finding Jimmy using 23andMe gave him hope that perhaps his patience might pay off and he would uncover the identity of his biological father, too.
“I just waited for somebody to match,” Paul said of continued search on 23andMe.
It was a long shot.
<div id="attachment_25634" style="width: 235px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-25634" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/20116871_10214016903441210_8432463590217499637_o-225x300.jpg" alt="" class="size-medium wp-image-25634" width="225" height="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/20116871_10214016903441210_8432463590217499637_o-225x300.jpg 225w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/20116871_10214016903441210_8432463590217499637_o-660x880.jpg 660w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/20116871_10214016903441210_8432463590217499637_o.jpg 768w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 225px) 100vw, 225px" />Paul&#8217;s (and Jimmy&#8217;s) biological mother.</div>
<h5>Waiting on a Match</h5>
Paul’s story is complicated, and like his brother, his childhood has a Dickens kind of bleakness.
Paul’s mother and father had divorced when he was just a year old. She’d become pregnant with Paul when his father was serving in Europe during the Second World War. The timing was odd, but Paul didn’t know that until later.
His mother, who he only has vague memories of, was hospitalized off and on for psychological problems throughout her life. When Paul was just one year-old, she put and him his older brother in a foster home where he stayed until he was almost five.
Around then, her former husband (and the man Paul at first thought was his father) brought him to Chicago to live with him and his new wife. Throughout his childhood, his father and stepmother remained distant to him. As for Paul’s connection to his mother, it was almost non-existent.
He has one fleeting memory of sitting on his mother’s knee — everything else he knows about his mother is from relatives. It wasn’t until Paul was 18 — when his father died suddenly of a heart attack — that he learned that his father wasn’t his biological father. 
“He was on my birth certificate, but not my father,” Paul said. “My life was turned upside down.”  
Paul lived with this, his mother’s rejection and her family shunning him. Paul still feels deep disappointment toward her family for letting him be shipped off to a foster home for five years.
“I must have been quite an embarrassment to them and my maternal grandmother, who was still living at the time.”
Paul’s half-brother Jimmy’s young life was more filled with physical abuse, but Paul suffered more from emotional abuse.
Rejected by his mother and her family, Paul spent years trying to find his biological father. That’s part of why he eventually got his DNA tested with 23andMe. Connecting with Jimmy more than two years ago opened up a door into his family history, and renewed his hope of finding something out about his father.
So he waited.
“All I did was spit into a tube and sit back and wait,” Paul said.
<h5>Finding His Sisters</h5>
<div id="attachment_25635" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-25635" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/20032047_10214011921236658_8904163204533659120_n-300x300.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-25635 size-medium" width="300" height="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/20032047_10214011921236658_8904163204533659120_n-300x300.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/20032047_10214011921236658_8904163204533659120_n-150x150.jpg 150w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/20032047_10214011921236658_8904163204533659120_n-271x271.jpg 271w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/20032047_10214011921236658_8904163204533659120_n-372x372.jpg 372w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/20032047_10214011921236658_8904163204533659120_n-574x574.jpg 574w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/20032047_10214011921236658_8904163204533659120_n.jpg 768w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />Paul&#8217;s biological father Bennett White.</div>
And then earlier this year, a new relative named Catilin popped up on his 23andMe results.
“Without DNA, I never would have found Caitlin, I never would have made this match,” said Paul. “It was like a bomb going off.”
Caitlin was a niece, the daughter of a half sister with whom he matches on his father’s side. Over the next few weeks, he met Caitlin’s mother, his half-sister, and his two other sisters. They shared with him a photo of their and Paul’s father, Bennett White, who died in 1960.
“He looked like me,” Paul said.
Tall and thin, his father hadn’t been a great dad to his daughters or husband to his wife. A teacher, his drinking problems drove him to quit and take a factory job. How Bennett and Paul’s mother met, he does not know, but his mother was at one point at a state hospital in Ohio where Bennett lived. Paul thought it was possible that his biological father could have been in detox at the hospital when his mother was there being treated for her psychological problems, but he does not know. 
“I believe I was the product of a brief affair,” Paul said. “I don’t even think he knew I existed.”
Paul has communicated with his sisters, Penny, Pam and Jane. They had one other sister who died as a baby. One of the sisters lives near him at his home in Florida, and they have met in person. Paul learned that his father had numerous affairs. It turns out he was married, and his wife was two months pregnant when he had an affair with Paul’s mother.
Later, he married another woman with whom he had two children, both of whom died at a young age. 
As with meeting his brother Jimmy, Paul is trying to get to know his sisters, seeing what they have in common, and how they are different. And answering this question that has lingered with him almost his entire life has changed him a bit.
“It’s both a big relief to know who he was and to put a face and name and character to this man,” Paul said. “It has put my mind at ease a bit, but I don’t think I’m done searching.”
He also notes that none of this would have been possible without 23andMe.
“I never would have found Bennett or Jimmy without it,” he said.

Using 23andMe To Find Family

Annie was looking at a note from a woman she didn’t know. Someone she’d been searching for all her life. A woman named Harley, who just might be her biological mother.
<div id="attachment_25598" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-25598" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/IMG_2842-300x300.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-25598 size-medium" height="300" width="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/IMG_2842-300x300.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/IMG_2842-150x150.jpg 150w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/IMG_2842-768x768.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/IMG_2842-1024x1024.jpg 1024w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/IMG_2842-880x880.jpg 880w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/IMG_2842-1180x1180.jpg 1180w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/IMG_2842-271x271.jpg 271w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/IMG_2842-372x372.jpg 372w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/IMG_2842-574x574.jpg 574w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/IMG_2842-980x980.jpg 980w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />Harley, on the left, and Annie.</div>“I can’t wait to talk to you,” Harley told her in the email. “Here’s my phone number.”
Annie tried to describe what she was feeling at that moment.
“I’m freaking out,” she said. “I literally almost vomited on the floor.”
Annie’s story — and it’s a doozy — is set to air this week on a new podcast called My Gay Life.
The Seattle-based producers Rebecca Fernandez and Cyndi Butz-Houghton put the show together. Annie’s story, titled “Are you my mom?” is just the second episode, so the team has already set the bar pretty high.
Rebecca, who gave us the heads-up on Annie’s hour-long story, told us it made them all “laugh, cry and get goose bumps.” Not a bad review. We heard it, and all of us here were right there with the Kleenex and group hugs.
In Rebecca’s quick summary of the story, she said, “(It) features a 30-year-old lesbian who was reunited with her birth mother — partially in thanks to 23andMe.”
But the story is way way more than that.
It’s about Annie first coming out to her parents at 14. (Her father was like “Duh”, but her mom was a little surprised.) What it was like to grow up “hella gay, in a hella small town.” And the story is about Annie finally finding a solid relationship with her partner, Alejandra, and about building strong bonds with her adoptive family, as well as with Alejandra’s parents.<div id="attachment_25599" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-25599" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/IMG_2837-300x300.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-25599 size-medium" height="300" width="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/IMG_2837-300x300.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/IMG_2837-150x150.jpg 150w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/IMG_2837-768x768.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/IMG_2837-1024x1024.jpg 1024w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/IMG_2837-880x880.jpg 880w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/IMG_2837-1180x1180.jpg 1180w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/IMG_2837-271x271.jpg 271w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/IMG_2837-372x372.jpg 372w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/IMG_2837-574x574.jpg 574w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/IMG_2837-980x980.jpg 980w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/IMG_2837.jpg 2048w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />A picture of Annie on the right as a teenager, next to a photo of her mother Harley as a teenager, on the left.</div>
Annie’s story is unique, but much of what she talks about will sound familiar to other adoptees, like growing up and being keenly aware that, unlike her friends, she didn’t look like her parents, or the fact that she didn’t have a family tree, or even a family medical history.Annie knew that she was born in a small town in Idaho and that she’d been handed over to her adoptive parents when she was just 12 hours old. That was the extent of what she knew of her birth. So what she carried her whole life were questions about her origins and the mother who gave her up for adoption.
But, as someone who had a wonderful, loving relationship with her adoptive parents, asking those questions brought up other uncomfortable issues. She didn’t ever want her parents to feel like her search meant that she felt they were in any way inadequate. Many adoptees express similar feelings. So much of her searching was internal. She thought about her biological mother more than she went out and searched for her.
“When you’re adopted and don’t know where you come from, or what your family looks like, you make up this vision,” said Annie.
For her, it was creating this “cookie cutter” version of a family with a mom who had the perfect hair, at home baking cookies.
The truth was a little different than that, Annie said. And after learning about everything, she felt she was fortunate that it took this long, because maybe earlier in her life she might not have been ready.Then this year after turning 30, Annie said she was finally feeling ready to answer the biggest question of her life:Where did I come from?
“My life was falling into place, so I decided I would start looking again,” Annie said. “I was at a point mentally that it was OK.”
Other things seemed to fall into place as well, and almost immediately after beginning her search, she started getting answers, first through a free search site for adoptees and then using 23andMe to confirm her connection. Within 24 hours, she connected with Harley, who shared photos.Right away some of the fantasies about her birth mother were set straight. Her birth mom had tattoos and worked in a bar. Annie, who has tattoos of her own, said the photo went counter to her idolized version of her birth mother, baking cookies at home.
“That was not what I was expecting,” Annie said.
At first, Annie didn’t even see the resemblance. She thought that once she talked to her birth mom, there would be this instant connection. That didn’t happen, but as they talked Annie felt drawn to her. And she heard for the first time the story of her birth. It was hard to hear.
Her birth mother was just 17 when she became pregnant. She ran away from home, but came back just before the birth. They told her that the baby would be adopted, so she asked her dad if she could at least see the baby after she was born. He said of course, but that’s not what happened. She never saw Annie. She didn’t even know if she had had a boy or a girl. Her parents had told her conflicting stories, even giving her wrong information to hide where Annie ended up.
Everything wasn’t cookie cutter and perfect for her birth mom. She had two more kids, two sons, who went to live with her sister and mother in Olympia, Washington. Harley spent some time in jail for a drug offense. One of the many twists in the story was that at one point, after being moved, Harley’s cellmate was one of Annie’s closest childhood friends.
Not long ago, Annie traveled to Sand Point, Idaho to meet her biological mother. She called it the “biggest day of my life.” And oddly she’s grown closer to her adoptive parents through all this.
As she thinks of everything that has happened in such a short time — she only began searching again in May — she realized that perhaps she could have solved the mystery of her birth long ago, “but I wasn’t ready.”
It wasn’t until now that she was ready. The timing was perfect.
Alejandra, Annie’s partner, told recently how the experience seemed to change her.
“’You are happy now,’” Alejandra told her. “It’s a positive change. You have a bounce in your step.’”
We’re feeling a little of that bounce. You can too by listening to Annie’s story <a href="https://soundcloud.com/mygaylife/episode-102-are-you-my-mom">here</a>.
And here&#8217;s a video of Annie going back to Sand Point to meet Harley for the first time. If you are not a patient person you can go to about the 3:30 mark, but keep the Kleenex close.
<iframe loading="lazy" width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/P-pv-3COjnU" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>

Listen To Annie’s Story

That urge to explore, to go beyond what we know, is programmed into our DNA — a central part of the story of human history, where people journeyed first out of Africa, and then beyond, to populate the world.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/iStock-522001452-300x200.jpg" alt="" class="alignright wp-image-25537 size-medium" width="300" height="200" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/iStock-522001452-300x200.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/iStock-522001452-768x512.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/iStock-522001452-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/iStock-522001452-880x587.jpg 880w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/iStock-522001452-1180x787.jpg 1180w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/iStock-522001452.jpg 1254w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
And now our DNA doesn’t just compel us to discover new frontiers, it gives us the map of where to go.
Customers at 23andMe have begun to use their DNA test results as a roadmap of sorts. They have created travel itineraries, picked trip destinations from their newfound ancestral lands, and even visited with relatives they met through 23andMe.
“I got my results one day, and I jumped on the map view to see if I had family in any of the places where my ancestry is supposedly from,” said<a href="https://blog.23andme.com/23andme-customer-stories/more-deserving/"> Rachel Kilgore</a>, a product manager in Los Angeles. “There was one distant cousin in Norway!”
<h5>Mapping It Out</h5>
Rachel may have been in the vanguard when she used her 23andMe results three years ago to map out a summer vacation, but her story isn’t so unusual now as a steady stream of people have followed her lead and used the discoveries they made with their 23andMe results to help plan their travel.
People have used their 23andMe results to help direct their <a href="https://www.23andme.com/dna-ancestry">travel to their ancestral roots</a> in Africa, the United Kingdom and Russia, for instance.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Ancestry-Comp-Home-e1498680599352.png" alt="" class="alignright size-full wp-image-24211" width="300" height="190" />
Risa Rubin used her 23andMe results to help her and her brother find members of her mother’s family who they thought had died in the Holocaust. Risa eventually<a href="https://blog.23andme.com/23andme-customer-stories/meant-to-be/"> traveled to Israel</a> to meet her newfound cousin Ayelet. Mike Lattimore knew he’d travel to Africa, but he said his results helped push him in the<a href="https://blog.23andme.com/23andme-customer-stories/the-keeper-of-memory/"> right direction</a>. For Alyssa, another customer with African ancestry, her results directed a journey to Ghana that turned into an extended stay where she<a href="https://blog.23andme.com/23andme-customer-stories/alyssas-23andme-ancestry-story/"> volunteered at an orphanage</a>.
When scientists first mapped the<a href="https://www.genome.gov/glossary/index.cfm?id=106#human_genome_project"> Human Genome</a> in 2003, they knew it would guide scientists studying disease for decades to come. What they didn’t know was that it could help people navigate their own personal journey of discovery.
“I strongly feel that we should invest in finding our ancestry because it really helps us as human beings,” said Mike.
This summer, we are launching the Golden23SM Sweepstakes to send 23 winners on trips around the world based on their DNA. Starting today through August 3, one lucky winner will be chosen each day to embark on an exciting genetic adventure. Travel packages are valued up to $20,000 and include round-trip airfare for two, five nights of accommodations, customized itineraries and more. Learn more and enter <a href="https://23andme.com/dna-travel">HERE</a>.
NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. A purchase will not improve your chances of winning. Open to legal residents of the 50 U.S. states and D.C., 18 or older. Sweepstakes ends at 11:59 pm PT on 8/3/17. You must complete the 23andMe Personal Genetic Service™ to qualify to win. Itineraries are not for entire duration of stay. For free entry method and complete details, see <a href="https://www.23andme.com/dna-travel-rules">Official Rules</a> that govern this Sweepstakes. Sponsor: 23andMe, Inc. Void where prohibited.
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DNA Travel, It’s a Trip

A generation ago it was a felony to marry across racial lines in Virginia and 15 other states in the south, and the repercussions of those laws are still felt today.
<div id="attachment_25461" style="width: 396px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-25461" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Mildred_Jeter_and_Richard_Loving.jpeg" alt="" class="wp-image-25461 size-full" height="258" width="386" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Mildred_Jeter_and_Richard_Loving.jpeg 386w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Mildred_Jeter_and_Richard_Loving-300x201.jpeg 300w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 386px) 100vw, 386px" />Mildred Jeter and Ricahrd Loving, the couple who were at the center of the US Supreme Court Case Loving v. Virginia that struck down laws against interracial marriage.</div>
The movie “<a href="http://focusfeatures.com/loving">Loving</a>” tells one side of that story, the moving tale of Mildred and Richard Loving, who defied the law and married. The couple’s almost decade-long legal fight ended in 1967 with the landmark Supreme Court ruling,<a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/388/1/case.html"> Loving v. Virginia</a>, which erased laws in 16 states that prohibited marrying outside your race.
This week marks the<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/06/12/opinion/loving-virginia-50-year-anniversary.html?_r=0"> anniversary</a> of that case.
For many other couples that crossed racial lines and dared to fall in love in those years, the Loving case came too late. Their stories have yet to be told.
Katrina Callsen, a young mom and law student in Virginia, only recently uncovered her own family’s side of that story using 23andMe.
Her dad, Clarence, a retired Army sergeant first class, was adopted at birth and never knew anything about his biological parents, but with the help of his daughter’s 23andMe results he was able to learn his story for the first time.
<div id="attachment_25451" style="width: 259px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-25451" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Clarence-youth-249x300.jpeg" alt="" class="size-medium wp-image-25451" height="300" width="249" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Clarence-youth-249x300.jpeg 249w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Clarence-youth-768x924.jpeg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Clarence-youth-851x1024.jpeg 851w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Clarence-youth-731x880.jpeg 731w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Clarence-youth-980x1180.jpeg 980w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Clarence-youth.jpeg 1204w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 249px) 100vw, 249px" />Clarence as a child.</div>
Clarence’s father was black, and his mother was white. They were young and in love, but they lived at a time and in a place, Virginia, where mixed race couples could not legally get married.
When Clarence’s birth mom became pregnant she and his birth father said they couldn’t get married and she didn’t feel she could keep a black child, Katrina said. 
After giving up Clarence, the couple never saw their son, or each other again.
Fifty years later, as Clarence pieced together the story. With the help of 23andMe and Clarence’s daughter, Katrina, he was first able to find his biological father by first connecting with a cousin, who also happened to live in the same town and only a few blocks away.
“My dad is an adoptee from a completely closed adoption and I did 23andme to gain some ancestry and health related insights,” Katrina said.
By testing she learned that her dad was also mixed race, she said.
“When I got my 23andme results back and found out I had a cousin living down the street from me,” she said
It was through this cousin that Clarence and Katrina were able to find out who his father was.
Now 85, Clarence’s biological father had never told anyone — his wife or stepchildren — that he had had a child.
<div id="attachment_25453" style="width: 235px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-25453" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Katrina-as-child-225x300.jpeg" alt="" class="size-medium wp-image-25453" height="300" width="225" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Katrina-as-child-225x300.jpeg 225w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Katrina-as-child-768x1024.jpeg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Katrina-as-child-660x880.jpeg 660w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Katrina-as-child-885x1180.jpeg 885w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Katrina-as-child-scaled.jpeg 1920w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 225px) 100vw, 225px" />Katrina as a child.</div>
When Clarence was finally able to meet him in person, he told his son that his biological mother was white, and although they had wanted to, at the time it was illegal for them to marry in Virginia.
“My biological grandpa told my father he thought of him many times and … made a plea to meet him before it was too late, and there he was delivered on his doorstep,” Katrina said.
After that initial meeting and using information that Clarence’s father shared, he and Katrina were later able to find his birth mother.
She too had kept his birth secret, and the agony she had at having to give up her son.
Some of the emotion around that history is still raw, and both of Clarence’s birth parents coming to terms with finding their son. For their part, Clarence and Katrina have asked that his birth parents names not be used to respect their privacy, and allow Clarence time to get to know them and their families.
For Katrina the story brings full circle a painful personal and national history. Recently, Katrina and her dad spoke on a panel moderated by lifestyle blogger Serein Wu, at the<a href="http://www.mixedremixed.org/mixed-race-multiracial-americans-celebrate-50th-anniversary-interracial-marriage/"> Mixed Remixed</a> festival in Los Angeles celebrating the anniversary of the Loving case, and shared their story.
“Got us all in tears in here,” Tweeted Katy Monty after listening to Katrina and her dad talk about finding his biological family.
Even after the law changed, biracial couples have struggled. Katrina said her parents also faced some of those same tensions. Clarence is black and Katrina’s mom is white, and initially their parents did not embrace the marriage. But their mixed race children grew up in a different time.
“Thirty years and four kids later they are still together,” said Katrina.
<div id="attachment_25463" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-25463" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/image1-300x288.jpg" alt="" class="size-medium wp-image-25463" height="288" width="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/image1-300x288.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/image1-768x736.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/image1-1024x981.jpg 1024w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/image1-880x843.jpg 880w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/image1-1180x1131.jpg 1180w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />Clarence and Katrina at the Mixed Remixed festival in Los Angeles with moderator Serein Wu.</div>
And making this connection and learning of the story of her dad’s birth has been important for Katrina and her father. Finding family roots, history and relatives has connected them to their history. Even Katrina’s move to Charlottesville to attend law school feels to be part of that. Her biological family has deep roots there and she herself feels connected to the place, a connection that — as the daughter of an Army NCO who regularly moved every few years — she’d never had before.
“It is hard, if not impossible, to put in words what it means to suddenly find a biological family, to find roots, to realize that the place you have felt naturally drawn to holds centuries of your family history,” Katrina said. “Genetics can hold stories and answers we didn’t even know we were seeking. It can show you the family you never knew, who lives around the corner, and is overjoyed to welcome you back home.”

The Legacy of Loving

This Father’s Day is a little different for Esther Blue.
This year, after finding her biological father, Farhad, with the help of 23andMe, she can actually wish him a Happy Father’s Day.
For all her life, Esther had lived with questions about who her father was and where he came from. With few clues and years of futile searching, she had largely given up hope of learning even the basics.
“I didn’t have anything,” said Esther, a 29 year-old journalist and mother of three living in Arizona. “I just knew that he was originally from Iran.”
At one point she’d even talked to a private investigator to help her find her biological father, but the investigator turned her away.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Esther-and-her-dad-300x251.jpg" alt="" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-25446" width="300" height="251" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Esther-and-her-dad-300x251.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Esther-and-her-dad.jpg 500w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
“He told me to save my money.” There wasn’t enough to go on, she said.
It doesn’t happen for all customers, but Esther was fortunate that cousins she didn’t know also happened to use 23andMe.
All the stars had to align for her to have made this connection and they did, her cousin later told her. 
When they did, the speed with which she made her connections felt overwhelming. She used 23andMe mostly to see if what her mother had told her was true, that she was half Middle Eastern and, on her mother’s side, Latino. So the first thing Esther looked at were her ancestry results.
“I wanted to confirm I am Middle Eastern,” she said.
She did, seeing a large percentage of ancestry from the Middle East in her results, as well as ancestry from southern Europe and Native American ancestry. But she didn’t expect the close cousin matches. In her DNA Relatives, she saw a handful of second and third cousins, including a few who had Iranian ancestry.
She sent a message to one of them, her second cousin Pejman. Within hours, she got a message back. When she shared her photo with Pejman, he knew right away who her father was.
“I thought it would be this long journey to find things out or that maybe I’d need to speak Farsi,” said Esther. “I just didn’t expect this. My whole life changed in one day.”
Esther’s cousin asked a family member to contact her biological father, who was in France visiting his other daughter, Esther’s younger half sister, Julia.  When they tracked him down, he thought the urgent message was because someone in the family won the lottery. When he learned the news, it felt as if he was the lucky winner.
“My God, after 28 years I have another daughter,” he said<a href="http://www.rightthisminute.com/video/rtmtv-dna-test-leads-woman-biological-dad"> later</a>.
It’s hard for Esther to describe that emotional first meeting.
“Someone needed to pinch me, I thought ‘How could this be real?’” said Esther. “A miracle happened.”
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[vc_video link=&#8221;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AA1FSwnbc94&#8243; align=&#8221;center&#8221;]

Happy Father’s Day

It was a simple Mother’s Day gift, but it took 47 years to deliver it. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Star-Advertiser-e1495228883750-227x300.png" alt="" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-25337" width="227" height="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Star-Advertiser-e1495228883750-227x300.png 227w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Star-Advertiser-e1495228883750.png 346w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 227px) 100vw, 227px" />
Last week, on the island of Kauai, Tod Walker, a musician and father of two, got to hug his mom, Marguerita “Landis Gravenor, for the first time.
“I can’t stop hugging her and holding her hand,” Tod told a writer with the <a href="http://www.staradvertiser.com/2017/05/14/hawaii-news/lee-cataluna/son-reunited-with-mom-in-time-for-mothers-day/">Honolulu Star Advertiser</a>.
An adoptee, who found his birth mother with the help of 23andMe, Tod’s story was featured in the Mother’s Day edition of the paper.
Seeing him after giving him up as a baby was something his mom had been waiting for all these years.
“When I hugged him at the airport, it was just tears of joy,” said Marguerita, who was an unwed teenager when she had Tod. “It wasn’t heavy, like sadness or guilt. It was just joy. I was holding my son.”
Read the story <a href="http://www.staradvertiser.com/2017/05/14/hawaii-news/lee-cataluna/son-reunited-with-mom-in-time-for-mothers-day/">here</a>.

A Mother and Son Reunion

Sarah Biggers hadn’t been looking for a mother. She already had one.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Sarah-Biggers-and-her-birth-mom-Wendy-300x225.jpg" alt="" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-25276" width="300" height="225" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Sarah-Biggers-and-her-birth-mom-Wendy-300x225.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Sarah-Biggers-and-her-birth-mom-Wendy-768x576.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Sarah-Biggers-and-her-birth-mom-Wendy-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Sarah-Biggers-and-her-birth-mom-Wendy-880x660.jpg 880w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Sarah-Biggers-and-her-birth-mom-Wendy-1180x885.jpg 1180w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
“I didn’t have a need to find my birth family,” she said.
But when she became pregnant, the fact that she didn’t really know anything about her biological family weighed more heavily on her. For years, whenever she had a doctor’s visit, or a physical, she couldn’t offer any information about her own family medical history. That part of the forms was also a blank, so with a baby on the way she wondered what she would be passing on to her child.
“I had that moment where I was like ‘I have no idea what to expect,’” she said.
Then for Mother’s Day, her husband got her 23andMe as a gift.
“Who would have thought that sending off a little spit would one day connect you with someone so deeply,” Sarah said.
<h4>A Connection</h4>
Sarah’s results connected her with a second cousin, and together they quickly deduced that her cousin’s mother and Sarah’s grandmother were sisters. From there, they figured out who Sarah’s mother was. It took Sarah a few months to compose a letter.
“I thought if this was the only thing that I get to say to this woman, I need to do it right,” she said. “I wanted to tell her everything was not just OK, but better than OK.”
Sarah didn’t want to disrupt this woman’s life. Sarah just wanted to make sure she knew she was happy, married and the mother of a beautiful young girl.  She sent off the letter and waited, for weeks and weeks.
“I literally was checking every day,” Sarah said.
And then in November, more than a month later, Sarah heard back.
“It was the most beautiful message and so sweet and everything an adoptee would want and need to hear,” Sarah said. “I can’t describe that feeling.”
Her biological mother, Wendy, received the letter, but it took her a long time to respond. When she did, Wendy apologized for the delay. Even though she thought of her daughter every day, she explained, she hadn’t spoken about her to anyone else in all that time.
“The note you sent me was an answer to every single prayer that I ever prayed for you,” Wendy wrote. “That you were loved, healthy, successful and happy.”
These letters started a flurry of more messages back and forth and then a few marathon-long phone calls, as Sarah shared with Wendy her story and Wendy told Sarah of her birth.
<iframe loading="lazy" width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/RD0OnLsgfFs" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>
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<h4>Capturing Time </h4>
Wendy had been in high school when she got pregnant. She went away to a group home for unwed mothers where she had to finish school while she waited to deliver her baby. At the group home she stayed with other girls from different walks of life, all in the same predicament. When the baby came, Wendy was alone in the hospital. She begged to be allowed to have more time with her baby, and was permitted to stay an extra day. Wendy was 19 years old and for more than three decades she never talked about what happened to anyone, that was until she met Sarah.
Even though she never talked about her baby, Wendy said she never stopped thinking about the girl she’d given birth to on a night in August 1984. She kept her baby close to her two days, rocking and singing her to sleep with the words to the 70s pop song,<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1YxczPEPrs"> “Time in a Bottle.&#8221;</a>
And then Wendy gave her up. Sending her off with an outfit and blanket she’d crocheted herself, and a letter that told her daughter’s new parents that she never would come to disrupt their lives, or come searching for “Lauren Elizabeth,” the name she’d given Sarah. But if her daughter ever came in search of her, “I’ll never turn her away.”
Then she was gone. Over the years, all Wendy had left was a memory and a snapshot of her infant daughter taken secretly with a Kodak camera. She kept the photo in her nightstand, saying a prayer for daughter every night, and every August on her infant’s birthday she’d have a cupcake. At Christmas, she’d send a gift to another child in her baby’s honor.
Wendy eventually married and, at 32, had another daughter, Hannah. She always thought the daughter she gave up would one day find her — Wendy even set aside fine china for a gift for her wedding. And then did Sarah find her.
The two met in person on the coast of North Carolina earlier this year. Sarah got to meet her grandmother, and her half sister, Hannah, who has also tested with 23andMe. Sarah and her sister share about 26.6 percent of their DNA, relatively high for half sisters. They, in turn, have also met Sarah’s husband and daughter. 
“I just can’t say enough how amazing this is for people and how life changing,” Sarah said. “It’s just so awesome, that you can spit in a tube and in the end it would complete your life.”

Stories — Page 11